The Fourth of July is always a time for taking stock of who we are as nation, and what we are trying to achieve. We seem to be living in very perilous times. But how truly perilous are they? As we celebrate the independence we gained in a war which lasted for six long and bloody years, let us today reflect on where our nation stands in relationship to the world and to our own people. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.
Pastoral Prayer
On this holiday weekend, O God, we praise Thee for Thy care of us as a nation, and for the leading of Thy spirit among people who have led us through many times of tension and uncertainty. Though we ourselves did nothing to deserve it, we praise Thee for those in past decades and centuries whose wisdom and insight led us to become the strong, influential, and democratic country we are today. We ask Thee to provide us more such leaders in the present and in the near future. But we also ask Thee to convince each of us how much we are personally involved in the electoral process which puts leaders into positions of power and influence. Lord God, give to us a greater sense of personal responsibility for what democracy means from day to day and year to year. Keep us from blaming them when we may equally if not more culpable when things go awry.
We pray for our political parties as they prepare for their upcoming conventions. Make the leaders and delegates open to reason more than to rancor, to positive movement forward rather than to nostalgic and unproductive gazing backward. Above all, we ask that somehow peaceful demonstrations may overcome thoughts of violent outbursts, and that cool heads may prevail when heated rhetoric is ginned up before cameras and ubiquitous cell phones.
As always we pray for people who especially need Thy healing touch or Thy calming influence at this time: for the seriously ill, the financially strapped, the mentally unstrung, those who are pawns in wars which only make their situations worse, those who are refugees with no place to go and none who seems willing or able to help. And in praying for Thine assistance for such people in such situations, we pray for Thy help to us as citizens, voters, and fellow human beings to provide whatever assistance we can give to these people. We make our prayers in the name of Jesus, whom we believe is Thy Christ. Now we pray together as Jesus taught his followers, saying, Our Father….